Up for conformation critique. Currently nine years old (though these photos are all from two to four years ago). 1D barrel mare with limited hauling and unlimited capacity to injure herself. Now sadly retired from the barrel pen due to lingering old (and new) soft tissue, etc. problems in the left front leg. When she's hobbling is better than aerage, we now practice dressage....badly.

Pretty color,..., I've always liked a flea bitten grey.
How incredibly sad that she is permanently crippled at 9 years of age:-(.
She's put together really well, what could have happened for her to have to be retired at 9?
Hopefully, she is still able to be lightly trail ridden.

Opps, I see you say you are now practicing dressage.
I hope that's not too strenuous on a horse with soft tissue damage?

Good luck with her:wink:

QOS

08-06-2011 10:31 AM

She is a pretty mare...maybe with some rest and off time she will improve enough for light dressage and trail riding.

HorseyChic

08-06-2011 12:34 PM

CutePosted via Mobile Device

rodeoqueen77

08-06-2011 01:04 PM

very pretty

rodeoqueen77

08-06-2011 01:04 PM

i use to have a horse that looked like that

corinowalk

08-06-2011 01:43 PM

I can totally believe she was really great at barrels, she is very well built for it.

She is very well balanced with good muscling all over. Shorter neck, shorter back, compact hindquarter.

She has a little bit more of an upright shoulder, nothing tragic though. Shorter pasterns with great angles! In the back, shes got some spring to her hock that I like in a speed horse.

Overall, I like Miss Bones. I think shes built quite nicely!

waresbear

08-06-2011 02:20 PM

This is an attractive horse, the firefly chaser correct? Nice muscling & a good topline, great back engine. I am no expert, so take my critique with a grain of salt. I do see a bit of post legs on hind legs and her neck is a wee bit on the short side and ties in high to her shoulders, with the pronounced dip before her withers. Excellent condition and nice weight, well cared for horse.

Elana

08-06-2011 04:27 PM

She is nice but incredibly upright and straight in front. The legs is so straight and the pasterns don't help that a LOT.. a bit short. Left hock looks capped in the saddle picture and hind pasterns look very upright.

Isn't this the same mare you were false racking?

IMO she does not have enough hock to do a LOT of dressage at higher levels. She may have enough try but she really does not have the appearance of a dresage horse. That being said, dressage basics are good for any horse.

bubba13

08-06-2011 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhoaNow
(Post 1126676)

Pretty color,..., I've always liked a flea bitten grey.
How incredibly sad that she is permanently crippled at 9 years of age:-(.
She's put together really well, what could have happened for her to have to be retired at 9?

Well, I think you already know the story, but a lot of people here don't, so I'll retell. She came up lame with an abscess in her right front in May of '09. We doctored that, but afterwards, she just didn't seem "right." The vet thought she was off in the hind and slightly positive to hock flexions, so we injected her there, and she was declared "sound"--but she didn't seem sound to me. I kept riding her but she didn't feel right, so back to the vet--now she was off on her left front. We radiographed and ultrasounded, to no avail. We injected her coffin bone. The vet thought she wa better, but she wasn't. Then the vet thought she might have torn her sesamoid ligament. We turned her out for three months, on pasture, no riding. No improvement, either. So we stall-rested her for a month and reinjected the coffin region. Again, nothing. In October of '09, we redid the ultrasound and radiographs, which were still clean, and then hauled her to an out-of-state hospital for an MRI. This showed three significant tears in the deep digital flexor tendon, in addition to some other minor problems. Prognosis was "fair," with a 70% chance of return to soundness if we followed their protocol. This consisted of IRAP injections, shockwave therapy, and five months of stall rest, with minimal handwalking. All of this was done as ordered. At the end, she seemed much better. My local vet thought she was great. I legged her back up and started entering her in barrel races. She did extremely well, winning or placing in the 1D almost every time, with only limited hauling and experience. But then she started a faint headbob again. I talked to the vet and she thought that perhaps there was scar tissue on the tendon that needed to work itself out; that, or perhaps her tendon sheath was inflamed. I made an appointment to have her tendon sheath injected, but the day before the scheduled appointment, after a few days of not even being touched, she came up lamer than ever before. Thus began round II. We shockwaved her multiple times, injected her in several areas, stall rested her, pen rested her, did even more therapeutic shoeing (we'd been doing therapeutic stuff all along before, with the most highly regarded farrier in the region), etc. etc. etc. But it just kept happening. I have not done any hard riding on her since August of '10. But whatever riding I do does not seem to influence her degree of soundness. I have not been able to determine any kind of pattern to her lameness, and neither have the two vets currently treating her, nor the farrier.

I have finally given up taking her to the vet, after--literally--twice-a-month visits earlier this year, and false hope every time, and many expensive treatments. She is never badly lame, and her quality of life is fine, but I've now spent two years and over $6000 (yes, of my own meager savings) trying to fix her, all to no avail. When she's doing well, I ride her lightly, and when she's "off," I let her be.

Quote:

Hopefully, she is still able to be lightly trail ridden.

Opps, I see you say you are now practicing dressage.
I hope that's not too strenuous on a horse with soft tissue damage?

The vet told me to go ahead and barrel race her--that she's sounder than half the horses out there (which, sadly, is true). That said, I'm not following the vet's advice.

Quote:

Good luck with her:wink:

Well thank you very much.

Quote:

Originally Posted by corinowalk
(Post 1126872)

I can totally believe she was really great at barrels, she is very well built for it.

She is very well balanced with good muscling all over. Shorter neck, shorter back, compact hindquarter.

She has a little bit more of an upright shoulder, nothing tragic though. Shorter pasterns with great angles! In the back, shes got some spring to her hock that I like in a speed horse.

Overall, I like Miss Bones. I think shes built quite nicely!

Much appreciate it! I don't know if it was dumb luck on my part or what that picked out the scrawny, grade (at the time), fugly gray four-year-old and saw potential. Potential for bitchiness, that is. ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by waresbear
(Post 1126907)

This is an attractive horse, the firefly chaser correct? Nice muscling & a good topline, great back engine. I am no expert, so take my critique with a grain of salt. I do see a bit of post legs on hind legs and her neck is a wee bit on the short side and ties in high to her shoulders, with the pronounced dip before her withers. Excellent condition and nice weight, well cared for horse.

Yep, she is a tad posty in the hocks, and her neck sure isn't the greatest. Bullneck--that was and is a fight, to get her to carry herself without thrusting it out and developing ewed muscling, which she has naturally, anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elana
(Post 1127018)

She is nice but incredibly upright and straight in front. The legs is so straight and the pasterns don't help that a LOT.. a bit short. Left hock looks capped in the saddle picture and hind pasterns look very upright.

Not sure what you mean but straight in the front? Are you referring to her shoulder, or her pasterns, or...? Her shoulder is, yes, more upright than I would like. I've always thought her pasterns to be short, but not upright. Regarding the appearance of capped hocks, she naturally carries a lot of fluid in her tendon sheaths. I think that's part of the reason why the vet thought she needed her hocks injected. But I don't think it's indicative of lameness...I think that's just her oddity.

Quote:

Isn't this the same mare you were false racking?

IMO she does not have enough hock to do a LOT of dressage at higher levels. She may have enough try but she really does not have the appearance of a dresage horse. That being said, dressage basics are good for any horse.

Yep, it's the mare with the funky-bad gait (she's always had it, since long before she went lame). I never really thought of her as a dressage horse, either, but on the earlier threads, a lot of people were commenting on how she'd make a good one. :shock: The woman (the vet's husband and a highly respected local H/J & dressage coach) who gave me a lesson, however, just loved her and thought she was a "mini Warmblood." Color me surprised, to say the least.